Microsoft announced the launch of the AI for Health program, dedicated to improving the health of people and communities around the world. The five-year project aims to empower nonprofits, researchers, and organizations through artificial intelligence and data science tools.
The world has changed dramatically since the launch of the project. As of this writing (April 9, 2020), more than 1.4 million people worldwide have been infected with COVID-19. This crisis has brought a painful realization that health knows no borders and affects everyone on the planet.
Given this urgency, we are working hard to advance the AI for Health program, focusing on helping those researchers on the front lines of COVID-19 research. Our work focuses on five specific areas where we believe data, analytics, and the skills of a data scientist can have the greatest impact. We also immediately committed $20 million to this particular program.
This is just part of Microsoft’s full-scale efforts to fight the new crown pneumonia epidemic – we are fully supporting distance education and empowering students around the world, working to help companies work from home, ensure the supply of needed medical supplies, and provide local communities. provide support. We hope that through these efforts, researchers and organizations will be able to respond to the crisis (AI for Health project to fight the new crown pneumonia epidemic).
The fight against COVID-19 is well underway, with some of our key collaborations including:
- The COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium – a public-private partnership led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Microsoft provides the world’s most powerful computing resources to researchers to help Significantly accelerate the pace of scientific research in the fight against the epidemic. Microsoft researchers are located around the world and span the fields of computer science, biology, medicine, and public health, and they are collaborating on several projects in the consortium.
- The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a global health research organization, released a set of visualizations and forecasts of COVID-19 data. The White House, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), local Governors, and hospital administrators have begun to use the data to mobilize resources.
- The Washington State Department of Health is developing a new dashboard designed to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and speed of reporting data to the public. The dashboard is based on data reported by local health jurisdictions, medical facilities, and laboratories.
- Folding@home, a global organization using distributed computing, is studying the viral protein makeup of COVID-19, which could help develop treatments.
- The Sepsis Center of Excellence in Research (SCORE-UW), affiliated with the University of Washington School of Medicine, is a global collaborative network of hospitals, industry, blood banks, universities and funding partners. Using clinical data, radiographic imaging, and other patient biomarker responses, SCORE-UW is developing new algorithms to predict and improve healthcare and socioeconomic outcomes in COVID-19-positive patients (AI for Health project to fight the new crown pneumonia epidemic).
- Take, a market leader in chatbots and smart contacts in Brazil, has developed a bot that can provide the public with official, trusted information and connect potential patients with medical teams, thereby avoiding overloading Brazilian hospitals.
AI for Health projects focus on the COVID-19 pandemic
Given the global reach of the outbreak, technology will play a key role in all aspects of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak—from using artificial intelligence to process massive data sets to analyzing disease vectors and determining treatment impact. We will partner with nonprofits, government, and academic researchers to develop solutions and share our valuable experiences, enabling them to leverage Microsoft’s AI expertise, seek help from Microsoft technical experts and data scientists, and use other Microsoft resources.
Our support for research efforts related to the fight against COVID-19 will focus on the following five areas:
- Data and insights – providing timely information on people’s safety and economic impact
- Therapeutics and Diagnostics – Advancing research on vaccine development, diagnostics and treatment options
- Resource Allocation – Advise on the allocation of limited assets such as hospital space and medical supplies
- Disseminate accurate information—minimize the sharing of misinformation
- Scientific research – to study and understand COVID-19
My colleague, Microsoft Chief Science Officer Eric Horvitz summed it up brilliantly: “Data and computing will light the path to ‘pandemic mitigation’. We are committed to using our computing resources and expertise in the most promising research directions, including Biomedicine, logistics, epidemiology and public health.”
Learn about and follow Microsoft’s progress against COVID-19
We want the world to better understand COVID-19. Therefore, we have developed a set of interactive visualizations that are intuitive and transparent. This way, everyone can see the scope of the problem and the progress we are making together to end the outbreak and heal the world (AI for Health project to fight the new crown pneumonia epidemic). Microsoft also said we’ll continue to update and refine this visualization with new data and insights.
COVID-19 is a global problem, and finding a solution requires our collective efforts. We are proud to partner with researchers around the world and provide researchers with additional dedicated support through the AI for Health program.